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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Soon: Trump And Netanyahu Meet At The White House; FBI Turns Over Info On 5K Employees Who Worked January 6 Cases; China Retaliates With Tariffs On U.S. Natural Gas, Coal And More; RFK Jr. & Tulsi Gabbard On Track For Confirmation; FDA Approves First New Painkiller In Decades. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 04, 2025 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: He was asked, where would the people go? Where would Palestinians go? He said Jordan and other places. And he seemed to say they would just be very happy to do that, to go somewhere else.

Historically, that is not the case. That is not certainly what would be expected here. So a lot more to fact check, but were here at the end of our hour.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yeah. And also he said those Chinese retaliatory tariffs are fine.

We'll dig into that on THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER which starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

A slew of headlines from President Trump at the White House just a second ago in the Oval Office. Among the topics he discussed, he was asked about potential plans to get rid of, essentially to gut the Department of Education. He was asked about working with Congress. He was asked about what Elon Musk has been doing with DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency that has been going into various government agencies and departments.

Next up at the White House, any moment now, we are expecting President Trump to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That reunion will be underway during this critical time in the ceasefire of Israel's war with Hamas.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that negotiations for the second phase of this ceasefire and hostage release deal will begin with today's meeting in Washington, and the White House official says that the two leaders will discuss how to maintain the ceasefire deals and a commitment to freeing all remaining hostages held in Gaza.

While Trump and Netanyahu are political allies, Netanyahu is in a position where he has to figure out exactly where Trump stands on him and on key parts of this deal before deciding how to move forward. Netanyahu is under political pressure from his own government, the right wing of his government, to resume the war in Gaza, once all of the hostages are returned to Israel or their native countries, if it is not Israel. How is that going to land with Trump? We could soon find out. The two leaders are going to hold a joint news conference in the next hour, which we will bring to you live when it happens.

Let's start right now with CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny, who is at the White House.

And, Jeff, as President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu head into this meeting, where are there areas of agreement on this war and ceasefire, and where are the trouble spots?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, this, of course, is the first meeting with a foreign leader that President Trump has had since taking office. And even as we stand here on the north lawn of the White House, the protests surrounding the White House are ringing out in the air as Prime Minister Netanyahu is just moments away from arriving here. The color guard is just a few steps behind me here, slightly out of view.

But there is no doubt that this fragile second phase of a potential peace agreement is front and center in these discussions. Also, more hostages must be released. But the president was just talking a short time ago in the Oval Office about what he would like to see going forward in Gaza. So certainly that is also front and center in these conversations.

But you talked about that partnership that the president had last year during the presidential campaign. There is no doubt that his close alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu helped him politically. Now the question is, what is the next phase of that relationship for both men, actually, but it's the view of this American president that will go a long way toward determining the future of Netanyahu, as well -- as well as the next chapter in the Middle East. There's no doubt about that.

But during the Oval Office signing there, the president speaking very aggressively about Iran as well as a variety of other issues.

TAPPER: And that was mainly because he was talking about the executive orders that we saw him signing there on the Resolute Desk. Walk us through some of those executive orders, Jeff.

ZELENY: Well, Jake, perhaps one of the most striking moments was one on Iran. He was signing an executive directive of some type, unclear if it was an order or just an executive action, but he was talking about the instructions that he has given. If he were to be obliterated in his words or assassinated.

Of course, the Iranian officials have had their eyes on the president and many U.S. officials, some of whom President Trump has removed security from -- John Bolton, of course, and others.

But the president said he left a specific letter that the military action would be to obliterate the Iranian aggressors in that respect. So unusual language to hear that directly from the president there, but also talking about the United Nations, how he is a continuing the Biden administrations removing of funding from some U.N. groups in the Middle East there, as well as a variety of other issues.

We are beginning to see a pattern here now, Jake, as we enter the third week of this administration, the president signing executive orders in public, taking a variety of questions, talking a lot about Elon Musk and many other things.

[16:05:06]

Most presidents sign such orders and actions in private during office time. This president has decided for the second day in a row, and many times during his short time back in office to do it in public. He was also belittling his successor a bit, but certainly a variety of things. But this meeting now, there is no doubt that much to discuss here as we look behind us and the prime minister should be arriving shortly, Jake.

TAPPER: I assume -- I assume the noise in the background is protesters protesting the Israeli prime minister?

ZELENY: That's correct. There's quite a large perimeter around the White House, which is normally the situation, but we can hear those protests ringing out here outside the White House, outside the gates. Of course, you can't see that.

But the prime minister has been staying just across the way here at the Blair House, which of course, is the official residence for any visiting dignitary. The prime minister will be extending his stay here in the U.S. until at least Thursday.

But quite a loud set of protests here. Of course, this has been such a raw moment on all sides, but again, hell be making his way just as shortly across Pennsylvania avenue for that first meeting with President Trump -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much as we wait for the events at the White House this afternoon, the joint press conference with Netanyahu and Trump, as well as the arrival of Netanyahu, there's a lot more happening across D.C. that's defining the beginning of the Trump term.

CNN is learning that the Trump administration has begun drafting a new executive order that would kick off the process of eliminating the Department of Education altogether. You heard the president talking about the funds should just go to the states instead of to Washington.

At the FBI, the Justice Department gave senior FBI leaders a noon deadline to hand over information regarding any employee who worked on any case involving the January 6th Capitol riot.

Let's go to CNN's Rene Marsh right now.

And, Rene, what do we know about what Trump wants to do with the Education Department?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. So, Jake, on that first point about this executive order that CNN has learned that he's crafting, there are two parts to this. One is directing the secretary of education, which, by the way, has not even had her -- her confirmation hearings as yet. Linda McMahon, directing the secretary of education to devise a plan that would essentially enable them to diminish this agency through executive order.

And the second piece of this would be pushing Congress to write legislation that would essentially wipe out the Department of Education. That second piece, a clear acknowledgment that he cannot do this unilaterally, and he would actually need the help of Congress in order to do this thing that he has said and promised that he would do many times during his campaign -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Interesting. Rene Marsh, and I guess we'll come back to you when we get a copy of that executive order to talk about what this might mean for education in America.

My understanding is that most of the funding goes to the states already, as it is the Department of Education, one of the smallest federal bureaucracies in Washington as it is.

I want to go to CNN's Evan Perez right now.

Evan, the FBI has been told to hand over the names and the details involving any FBI employee, agent, official, et cetera, having anything to do with any of the January 6th prosecutions. Is the FBI complying with that order, with the deadline? And what might happen to the employees if they worked on January 6th related cases?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is still to be determined, Jake. But the FBI did comply with the letter of what the justice department ordered them to do, which is to provide the information on, in this case, about more than 5,000 employees, agents, analysts, people, staff, anybody who worked on January 6th related cases. There's also a case relating to the prosecution of Hamas leaders and what the FBI did is they didn't provide the names exactly.

What they did was they provided the unique employee identifier. And essentially, if people at the Justice Department want those names, they're going to have to go over to the justice -- to the FBI headquarters and try to look up those names.

And one of the reasons for this is, is this -- there's a lot of concern among FBI agents that if these names got handed over to the -- to the Justice Department, that perhaps those names would be leaked out and then those employees would be subjected to threats and harassment. We've seen that already over the last couple of years, Jake.

And so we know also that today the -- a couple of lawsuits were filed representing agents, former and current agents trying to prevent just that, the release of information and names of those agents that worked on those cases. Again, these are the January 6th cases, cases related to Donald Trump -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Evan Perez and Rene Marsh, thanks to both of you.

Drafting an executive order to initiate the Department of Educations elimination, placing nearly all staff members of the -- of USAID on leave as of now, firing at least a dozen agency inspectors general.

[16:10:09]

Not just happenstance, a lot of stuff going on. At the same time, it's strategy. It's designed in many ways to disrupt, to make it difficult for the media, especially to keep up with everything that's happening.

How do I know it's strategy? Well, take a listen to former Trump administration strategist Steve Bannon telling PBS about this strategy back in 2019.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP STRATEGIST: The opposition party is the media, and the media can only because they're dumb and they're lazy. They can only focus on one thing at a time.

All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day, we hit them with three things. They'll bite on one, and well get all of our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. These guys will never -- will never be able to recover.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's bring in the panel.

Paul, let me start with you. So the opposition party obviously is actually the Democratic Party.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

TAPPER: If there are any left, and I haven't really heard a lot from them in the last couple of weeks. How should your party, the Democratic Party, respond to what's going on right now?

BEGALA: They have to keep the main thing, the main thing, right? Donald Trump was not elected because people wanted to buy Greenland. He was elected because people want to buy groceries, and Democrats need to focus on a cost of living.

That's the most important mission Mr. Trump has. I hope he succeeds at it. I don't think he will. He's doing a whole lot of things to help the billionaire class right now. This is government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires.

But so -- you notice, I don't think he's cutting. I haven't seen any reporting that he's cutting any of the many contracts that go to companies run by Elon Musk in that billionaire boys club that apparently is running our country. So President Musk can go --. Trump can do, you know, what -- it's going to help billionaires. Democrats have to get back to their roots. They lost this election because they lost voters who make less than $50,000 a year. That's a heartbreak for me. It's an enormous accomplishment for Mr. Trump.

But he is stabbing those guys in the back right now. Do you think there's a single steelworker in Pennsylvania or farm worker in Wisconsin, or auto worker in Michigan who's helped by their schools getting less funds, and Elon Musk and the billionaires getting more.

So that's where Democrats need to go. They can't answer everything. They can't respond to -- to this flooding the zone. They got to keep the main thing, the main thing. And it's the middle class, stupid.

TAPPER: I want to ask you a quick, quick deviation. So you heard Paul and you hear this a lot from the Democrats about going after Elon Musk, President Musk, et cetera.. I think Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said something like that. You get that a lot.

BEGALA: The slip of the tongue.

John Fetterman, the senator from Pennsylvania, said before the election. I don't -- he basically -- I'm totally paraphrasing, but it was basically like, why are they attacking Elon Musk? The public loves Elon Musk. They think he's like Tony Stark. They think, you know, that's the -- for people who are not comic book nerds, that's Iron Man, billionaire inventor guy.

And that that was his basic point. And what do you think?

ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I think that's right. People see Elon Musk as a disruptor, and really, that's what they elected Donald Trump to do, which was to come in and upend the government. And I think to Paul's point about Democrats trying to keep the main thing the main thing. I don't think Democrats know what the main thing is anymore.

It could be part of the strategy where Republicans are flooding the zone. It's impossible to keep up with what President Trump's doing right now and be able to cover it in all the depths that everybody wants to, because they are consistently, every day making sure that there is plenty to talk about. The administration is doing on behalf of the American people.

But Democrats, instead of talking about the cost of goods or making sure things are more affordable, are chasing Elon Musk over to USAID to hold a presser about aid to foreign nations. This was a president elected on make America great again, an America first agenda.

Democrats are more worried about everybody else and not at home. They don't know what the main thing is anymore.

TAPPER: So lets talk about that because, I mean, I take her point, which is now Democrats are out there defending USAID.

BEGALA: Right.

TAPPER: Right? Is that -- obviously, I'm not talking about the merits of it. Talk about the politics of it. Is that really where your party wants to be defending foreign aid right now? BEGALA: Well, I --

TAPPER: I'm not talking about, again --

BEGALA: I'm a strategist. Right.

TAPPER: I'm not talking about policy. I'm talking about politics.

BEGALA: No, no, because I'm all for it. Okay. There's 816,000 people in Khartoum, Sudan, who are going hungry today because we shut down AID. Most voters don't care. I'm sorry. They just don't.

In Kansas, they don't care about Khartoum. There's only one piece of this.

TAPPER: In New York City and California, they don't care about it either.

BEGALA: Right.

TAPPER: It's not just Kansas.

BEGALA: I picked it for alliterative purposes. Excuse me. You're a writer. You know.

TAPPER: I understand.

BEGALA: So there is one piece of it I would talk about with the Democrats. There's a camp in Syria that holds ISIS fighters, the guards for that camp paid by USAID --

TAPPER: But they're exempt. They're exempt, but they're exempt --

BEGALA: Did they exempt that?

TAPPER: They're exempt from that.

BEGALA: We don't know. They shut it down. How are we supposed to know?

But mostly, Erin's right. Mostly right. Fundamentally.

Democrats have to stay on the middle class. The fact that Mr. Trump has turned the keys of the kingdom over to a bunch of booger eating billionaires in the middle of the night, taking over our Treasury Department, that's our money, not Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump's certainly not President Musk. That's what Democrats don't bring it back to the billionaire boys club.

TAPPER: I don't know what the booger eating part of that, but let me bring in Elie Honig again with the alliteration.

[16:15:03]

Alliteration is going to get you in trouble, sir. Elie, FBI agents are suing the DOJ right now to block any public

identification of any FBI employee who worked on January 6th investigations. Is it legal to fire FBI agents for doing the job they're assigned?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No, it's not legal, Jake. And what's remarkable here is it does happen from time to time that an FBI agent or a DOJ prosecutor gets fired, but that's because they've engaged in misconduct, that's because they've done something wrong.

But if you look at these firings that have already happened and the potential firings that surely lie ahead, the only justification, there is no pretext or pretense here. It's just you worked on the January 6th cases. We don't like that, that offended Donald Trump. Therefore, you're out.

And the other thing, Jake, is all these employees do have their administrative rights. They're entitled to a hearing to notice, to an appeal. And so I do think they're going to get some traction with these lawsuits pushing back.

TAPPER: All right. Elie, thank you so much.

And thanks -- thanks to one and all. Appreciate it very much.

So China has now retaliated after president Trump's new tariffs on that country. You might remember he is suspending for 30 days the ones on Canada and Mexico. But the China ones are going forward. How might this affect your wallet and how soon? I'm going to ask the new director of Trump's National Economic Council in moments.

Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One, but you're going to have more than two, and you'd have people --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:14]

TAPPER: Let's turn now to our money lead. The United States is now in a trade war with China. President Trump enacted a new 10 percent across the board tariff on Chinese goods this morning, plus a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum products.

China, of course, is punching back with its own tariffs set to start on February 10th.

Let's bring in CNN's Phil Mattingly.

And, Phil, I think most Americans would like to know. Bottom line, is this going to make their lives more expensive? How, when, et cetera?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Likely, probably by a few dollars or two, depending on what they're actually. Purchasing and not immediately. I think that's the answer to all three of your questions. Look, I think the reality right now is, while markets and certainly a lot of industries in the U.S. exhaled when the 25 percent, the threat of 25 percent tariffs against Mexico and Canada were paused for at least 30 days.

The 10 percent tariffs on China are not just kind of the usual run of the mill tariffs. They are sweeping. They are across the board. They are -- there are no exemptions. They actually do away with some exemptions that have been long standing.

And because of that you are going to see products that often haven't fallen under the umbrella of tariff actions, both by -- in Trump's first term but also by the Biden administration as well, that people tend to consume, whether it's consumer electronics products, TVs, laptops, cell phones, shoes, 99 percent of shoes purchased in the United States are actually imported. They come from Vietnam or China.

So there will likely be a change there. There will also be, in terms of apparel that comes in from China, which often falls underneath a de minimis exemption. There is no longer that exemption. I think what's interesting, when you talk to companies that are trying to navigate this at this moment in time, the scale of what was put into place in these across the board tariffs, the emergency authorization that was utilized to launch these tariffs certainly seems to signal a very different moment.

It's something that Trump has made very clear he planned on doing. But I think what's also interesting, too, Jake, is the very calibrated, somewhat cautious response that we saw from China. Yes, there was a response. It's scheduled to go into effect on February 10th, but it was for a very small sector or section of products, about 80-plus products.

When you look at the scale of what the Trump administration deployed versus what China responded with, roughly $450 billion is what the Trump administration tariffs will cover. China hitting back with about $14 billion, $15 billion.

So a lot of eyes right now on what we expect to be a phone call between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Trump in the coming days, potentially as soon as the middle of this week. In terms of what this means for what happens next. But what is very clear is while there may be inventories and the prices won't necessarily hit immediately, there will be an effect, no question about it.

TAPPER: So, Phil, before I let you go, I do want to just have you truth squad, what happened with Canada and Mexico? Yesterday, the president hit a pause, hit the pause button on tariffs against those two countries, saying that he got concessions from them. I've seen some liberals acting as if he didn't really get any concessions. All those things had been promised before. I've heard contradictory information that actually he did get some new stuff. But what's the truth here?

MATTINGLY: Somewhere in the middle, I think. Look, there is no question that over the course of the last 6 to 8 weeks, we have seen significant efforts on both the southern border and the northern border of Mexico and Canada to try and strengthen their border enforcement, to try and strengthen the intelligence capacities, the visibility that they have in their border, trying to get in front of what Trump ended up threatening.

After the threat, there were concessions that were made. I think when you talk to Canadian officials, they made clear the $1.3 billion border strengthening program that they pledged. That was something that they actually laid out back in December. Now, they did get the new inclusion of a fentanyl czar. There is a joint strike force task force that will be implemented as well in Mexico.

There will be 10,000 National Guard troops surged to the border. That's happened before. It happened in 2021 under President Joe Biden. So it's not some dramatic shift. But for the Trump administration saying this is about the border, this is a drug war, not a trade war. There are things that they can tangibly point to that build on what we've seen over the course of the last several months.

In terms of some dramatic shift of things that were never on the table, that suddenly were because of this threat, doesn't seem that that's actually the case, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much for clearing that up, I appreciate it.

Let's bring back our panel.

So where are we in this -- in this tariff war against China right now? I mean, it's obviously its very, very early. It seems like Mexico and Canada. I'm not saying it was just bluster, but he got something quick. I think it's different because obviously those are allies. And he knew what he wanted and he got some of what he wanted.

But China, this really could last a while.

PERRINE: This could last a while. But it's a -- it's a limited escalation by China. They're taking a very measured approach to really kind of Phil's point there.

[16:25:02]

They are doing much less back to the United States than Donald Trump is levying tariffs on them. They're trying to send a message to say, hey, we're going to play, but we're not going to play exactly by President Trump's rules here. So it's going this likely will go on for a while. But there were already tariffs on Chinese goods as it was at this point.

And so, this is not a bad fight for Donald Trump to pick. He got the concessions from our allies. If he's going to pick a tariff fight, make it against somebody that voters are already saying that that's somebody you should be going after.

TAPPER: Although you point out, I mean, and Trump has said, I think he told Kristen Welker of NBC News that one of the reasons he got elected was the high price of groceries. This is not going to help with that.

BEGALA: That's the problem he faces, is that it's the most important thing for him is to reduce the cost of living groceries, gas and rent. I think Democrats should use that as a mantra. That said, he could find a lot more support among Democrats for a fight with China, where a lot of Democrats are very hawkish.

As a Democrat, I'm happy that Marco Rubio is hawkish on China. He's our new secretary of state. Mike Waltz, the president's national security adviser, hawkish on China. As a Democrat, I think that's good.

But I don't see the end game. If he's going after China for stealing our intellectual property, man, Democrats are all in, right? So he could really have -- he could build something out. I'm not quite sure what his goal is. And I'm honestly confused as to why he picks on our best friends and tries to put a 25 --

TAPPER: Mexico and Canada.

BEGALA: Mexico, our closest neighbors, our best friends. It puts a 25 percent tariff on them and only 10 percent on China. Moreover, if you're worried about China and he is, I think, why push Colombia into their arms? I know it's a little -- it's a little country. And it was just a one day story, but not in Colombia.

So he picked a fight with the Colombians because they wouldn't let him land a plane full of immigrants.

TAPPER: Full of Colombians.

BEGALA: Colombians.

Well, that went away after a day. Colombians said, fine, you can land. And here's the thing, though. The president of Colombia gave a statement for 100 years, their foreign policy has been look to the north, ally with America, be America's best friend. The president of Colombia said, from now on, we look to the world and the Chinese are already in there.

So, a little tactical one day news cycle for Mr. Trump could push a really good ally over into China's arms. So again, he doesn't keep the main thing the main thing either. You got a problem with China? I think you have a lot of Democrats on your side.

Why he flip-flopped on TikTok, which is Chinese controlled mind games on our kids, I'll never know. He's never given us a good reason.

PERRINE: So I think there are two things there. One, I think the work he's doing against China right now is definitely related. And I take your point about intellectual property. I think that's a great point. I think something they should absolutely pursue. But it's about fentanyl and it's about -- about the overdose deaths.

In the first part of the Trump administration, there was a massive bipartisan bill to fight against fentanyl deaths and opioid deaths. I lost my brother to a drug overdose nine years ago. For a family like mine, to hear that there is a president trying to stop these overdoses and making it a key point, I never get to see my brother Eamon (ph) again.

I'm getting married soon. He doesn't get to be there, but it means a lot to someone like me that there is a president out there that even if he's picking a million fights with a million different people, that's one thing that's always going to resonate.

TAPPER: I'm so sorry to hear that.

PERRINE: Thank you, yeah.

TAPPER: But congratulations on getting married.

PERRINE: Thank you. Yes, so many ups and downs in life.

TAPPER: Two of President Trump's more contentious cabinet picks passed crucial committee votes today, which means that they will ultimately likely end up on the floor of the Senate for a full vote.

Tulsi Gabbard Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but do they have the final votes to get across the finish line?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:32:45]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): We need a leader at HHS who will guide President Trump's agenda to make America wealthy again, based on Mr. Kennedys assurances on vaccines and his platform to positively influence Americans health, it is my consideration that he will get this done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That was a key swing vote. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, in our politics lead, defending his decision earlier today -- F. Kennedy, Jr.'s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. He now that goes from the committee onto the floor of the Senate.

That announcement today, despite initial significant expressed vocal reservations from Senator Cassidy, who's a doctor who objected to Kennedy's decades of false claims against vaccines, claiming without evidence, without real evidence that autism is caused by vaccines, for example. Today, Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump's pick for director

of national intelligence, passed their committee votes on party lines, setting up both for a full Senate vote and setting up both to likely be confirmed.

I am joined now by Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey.

Are you surprised that Senator/Doctor Cassidy voted for Kennedy? He had been expressing serious concerns for a long time.

SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): I had hoped for a different outcome.

You know, I listened to, you know, he was the chairman of the health committee when we had Mr. Kennedy before us last week, and he raised very significant concerns about the vaccines and concerns that I think are well-founded. You know, I am a son of a polio survivor. My father had polio since he was a baby.

And when I hear Mr. Kennedy, talk about how he sows doubt and says, you know, maybe the polio vaccine killed many, many, many more people than it saved. You know, those are the types of actions. And, you know, Mr. Cassidy, Senator Cassidy, my colleague, said, you know, he got assurances from Kennedy when it came to vaccines.

What I heard when I talked directly to Mr. Kennedy, one on one in my office is he looked me in the eye and told me that he will in his first 30 to 90 days, bring every single vaccine in this country under review, under scrutiny.

[16:35:08]

And that every single one of them was on the table, is what he told me. That's not the kind of HHS secretary I want to see.

TAPPER: And that's -- I mean, it's the cause of his life for the last 20 years, that has been his cause, to stop vaccines and to sow doubt about their use and to -- I mean, he just -- the things he says are just not true. He lies all the time about vaccines.

KIM: And he was given opportunities to retract some of those statements there in the hearings that we had. You know, for instance, again, my mother is a Lyme disease survivor. A lot of people in my home state of New Jersey afflicted with that.

When he says that, it's very likely that it was a biological weapon that was created by the military, that Lyme disease is a biological weapon, you know, that kind of talk when he is somebody who has already had a platform, already has lots of people that trust him, and that is how he used that trust. You know, that is not something that I can assess would be make for a good secretary who has a platform of the United States government behind them.

TAPPER: Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be director of the office of national intelligence also moved forward this afternoon. You have an extensive background when it comes to national security issues. You worked at the Pentagon. You worked at the State Department. You worked at the White House, National Security Council, you served in Afghanistan as a civilian under Generals Petraeus and Allen. I think people might not know that it wasn't Senator Slotkin, your boss, at one point?

KIM: Yeah.

TAPPER: I don't know if people know that.

KIM: She and I have worked together, you know, last 15 years.

TAPPER: At the Pentagon.

KIM: The State Department. She brought me over to the Pentagon. But, look, I mean, both of us have deep experiences working with the director of national intelligence.

TAPPER: And what do you think of Tulsi Gabbard?

KIM: She -- she is not somebody I want in the Situation Room.

TAPPER: Why not?

KIM: You know, she is somebody who has overwhelmingly shown just a lack of judgment in terms of pushing forward very much Russian propaganda type statements, in terms of her attacks on the Ukrainian government, attacks on the United States, saying it was the United States and NATO's fault, you know, that put Russia in the position to invade Ukraine.

We'll also just look -- again, you and I talked about this before, her decision to meet with Bashar al Assad. You know, the decisions there to meet with someone who was clearly an adversary of the United States, had worked to try to undermine our efforts. You know, those are the types of things that very much lead me to question her judgment and her capacity to be the person who determines the president's daily brief every single day and be the lead briefer for the president.

TAPPER: I also just want to note, in the little time we have left, you also started your work for the government at USAID.

KIM: That's right.

TAPPER: And you joined other lawmakers at protests outside USAID headquarters yesterday. You say it's going to endanger our national security the way that the Trump team is shutting it down or hurting it, at least. How -- how does it hurt national security?

KIM: For instance, you know, look at this past weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio goes down to Panama, tells them that he doesn't want them to be able to -- he doesn't want them to take financial support and aid from China, says that that could have undue influence upon them.

Then he comes back here and helps lead the effort to gut USAID, which is one of our best tools to be able to counter financial influence from an economic influence from China.

TAPPER: The bridges and roads, right?

KIM: Yeah. The -- yeah, the belt and road initiative. Belt and road is what they were concerned about when it comes to China.

TAPPER: But China -- China is helping undeveloped countries. Belt and road, that's their theory.

KIM: I mean, the people in this world who most want to see USAID fail is basically, you know, President Xi, Vladimir Putin. Those are our adversaries and our competitors, and were doing the work for them.

You know, this is not about charity. I don't want the American people to think this is just about charity, that this is a dollar away from our help for our own communities. You know, this is about us in this very dangerous, political -- very dangerous global environment right now, the most dangerous environment I've ever seen in my lifetime. We deserve to have every tool at our disposal.

And we've always had a foreign policy based upon defense, diplomacy and development. That is something that Ronald Reagan himself, with his big supporter of, which is why USAID is in the Reagan Building here in D.C., is because it was a bipartisan understanding about having that those tools. And we're now seeing that come to an end.

TAPPER: All right. Senator Andy Kim from the Garden State, across the river there in New Jersey, you're going to be rooting for the Eagles.

KIM: Yeah, absolutely.

TAPPER: Just wanted to make sure that. Thanks so much, Senator.

Good to see you. When we come back, we're going to talk to the president's chairman of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett.

Stay with us.

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[16:44:14]

TAPPER: Welcome back.

President Trump moments ago said he will speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, quote, at the appropriate time, unquote, after pushing ahead with tariffs on all Chinese goods. Beijing has already retaliated.

Let's talk about all this with Kevin Hassett. He's the director of the White House National Economic Council for President Trump.

Good to see you, Kevin. Welcome aboard.

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: And congrats on the new job.

HASSETT: Thank you.

TAPPER: So what does President Trump want from China? I'll talk to you about Canada and Mexico in a second. But China specifically, you've stated that the tariffs and threats of tariffs are not part of a of a trade war. It's a drug war.

Tell us more.

HASSETT: Thank you.

Yeah. So the president 100 percent wanted everyone to read his executive order at the beginning that said that this is a drug war. We had about 90,000 people die from fentanyl last year. And it's unacceptable.

And he's had an enormous amount of progress, both with the Canadians and the Mexicans right now. And we'll see what happens with the Chinese. But the bottom line is that everybody spent the weekend talking about a trade war, and Canada and Mexico, and now here we are. And we still have a 10 percent tariff on China. And nobody was talking about China.

And the fact is that that we'll see what happens. But the president did this entirely because it's a drug war, and that it's unacceptable that more people died from fentanyl last year than from the Vietnam War. And if we hear from the Chinese a lot of good things, then we'll see. We'll see what happens. The president will make that call.

TAPPER: Do you think, as an expert on these issues, do you think that Xi Jinping and the Chinese government could just stop it if they wanted to, could just they know where the fentanyl plants or factories or whatever they are, are located, and they could just shut them down and they're just choosing not to. Or is it more complicated than that, or is it more difficult than that?

HASSETT: It's a very large country. But, you know, there are surveillance state and I would guess, Jake, if you and I were having dinner and talking about democracy, that wed be rounded up that day. And the fact is that we've got an enormous amount of intelligence about where this comes from. We've shared that with the Mexicans and the Canadians, and they're on the case in a way that is really, really promising for the future. And we'll see what happens with China.

But yes, I think that there's a lot they could do that they decided not to do.

TAPPER: So, President Trump has paused the tariffs on China -- I'm sorry -- on Canada and Mexico. Mexico pledged to send an additional 10,000 troops to there -- to the border. Canada, in addition to the previously discussed billion plus border security plan that they're -- that they've proposed a few weeks ago in anticipation of Trump taking office, they're also appointing a fentanyl czar. They're launching a force to combat organized crime and money laundering.

Is that enough? Assuming that they both countries go through with what they have pledged, is that enough to fend off these tariffs?

HASSETT: You know, I think the president will make that call when we look at the progress that's being made. But there's been a heck of a lot of progress. And so the president has really done a good job.

And so I think that the other thing is that there's a broader issue I want to talk about, which is what is the role of tariffs after this, you know, after China and Mexico and Canada? And as we've been looking at it and looking at the numbers, one of the things that really jumped out at me as an economist is I just asked our people, as were trying to understand what the president is telling us to do, how much tax did U.S. companies pay to our trading partners last year, and how much tax did our trading partners companies pay in the U.S.?

And the numbers were really shocking. Do you know that U.S. companies paid $370 billion in tax to our trading partners last year? And that our trading partners paid into the U.S. only $60 billion in tax. And so they have three times the GDP that we do. And there's this massive disadvantage for American production into the global tax system.

And President Trump has a long run agenda, not just this drug war of trying to onshore production in the U.S. and to level the playing field with all of these folks that have been taxing the heck out of our companies, but not paying tax in our country at all.

TAPPER: All right. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, thanks so much.

Please come by a lot. Explain to us what's going on. Explain to us how this is going to affect the American people. We really appreciate it.

HASSETT: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: And we'll be right back.

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[16:52:57]

TAPPER: In our health lead, for the first time in decades, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a new pain relief medication. This is a significant step in bringing relief to millions without the use of opioids.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins us now.

Sanjay, what's unique about this new pain medication and how big of an impact could it have?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, this is a pretty big deal, as you just mentioned. It's been since 1998 that there's been a new pain medication approved. I mean, the FDA typically approves dozens of medications for all sorts of things, but not pain. So patients really haven't had many options.

I think what is unique about this, if you think about opioids that you just mentioned, they tend to work primarily on the brain. The brain processes all pain. So that's why they're sedating. They can cause problems with addiction. These pain medications Suzetrigine Journavx acts as its called, works sort of more at the location of the pain, sort of trying to block the signals coming from the source of pain going to the brain.

As a result, you shouldn't get euphoria, you shouldn't get the sedating. It should lower the risk of addiction as well. So that's pretty significant.

Jake, I'll tell you, if you look at the numbers overall, pain is a significant problem in the United States. There's about 80 million prescriptions that are written for pain medications every year, and about half of those are for opioids. That's a lot of opioids that have been going around.

This could potentially be a substitute for those opioids. And that's what the -- I think the Vertex Pharmaceuticals banking on.

TAPPER: Right. And the opioids obviously, while an immense help to a lot of people also are risky in terms of some people getting addicted and heading in the wrong direction.

This drug, this new drug has an interesting backstory on how it was discovered. Tell us about that.

GUPTA: This family in Pakistan, they could walk on hot coals, Jake. They would feel the coals. They would feel that it was hot, but they would not have pain. It's really significant because people may have been able to walk on hot coals. They just couldn't feel it at all.

[16:55:02]

In this case, this family actually just couldn't feel the pain. Scientists noticed this. They found a specific gene that this family shared, and that gene encoded for a very particular receptor in the body, a sodium channel receptor. They focused on creating a drug that could essentially replicate what was happening to this family, alleviating their pain.

TAPPER: That's incredible. I hope they're getting a share of the profits.

GUPTA: I doubt it.

TAPPER: Me, too. I doubt it. I doubt it, too.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Dr. Gupta is going to be back later this week to answer your questions about pain, as well as this new medication, you know, sales of which should help benefit this Pakistani family. But it won't be.

You can submit your questions at the QR code on the screen. Thanks so much.

Stick with us. We'll be right back.

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